Liam Fox fails to give the waiting Foxhunters any sport

Foxhunters spent an intensely frustrating afternoon. It was rumoured that Liam
Fox was about to break cover, but when we hastened to the Chamber in the
hope of finding some sport, he was nowhere to be seen.

We instead found a man called Philip Hammond going through the motions of being Defence Secretary. Mr Hammond had already managed to create an atmosphere around him of somnolent boredom, stemming from the sense that he will never say anything new, risky or memorable.

Congratulations rained down on Mr Hammond for the rapidity with which he had mastered his brief. As Jason McCartney (Con, Colne Valley) said of the new Defence Secretary: “Having listened to him for 48 minutes, it’s as if he’s been in post for four years.”

Come back, Dr Fox, all is forgiven. You had more life in you than this bloodless technocrat.

Angela Eagle, from the Labour front bench, was worried that the contents of the Cabinet Secretary’s report about Dr Fox, which had not yet been published, had already been reported on the Daily Telegraph’s website at 12.50 p.m.

The Speaker, John Bercow, said he was aware of the intense interest in the report, which would be published later in the day, and “it would not require telepathy to deduce” that an application for an urgent parliamentary question would then be accepted.

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But it did require telepathy to know whether we would hear from Dr Fox. Another rumour ran round that he was on his way, and would speak as soon as the Cabinet Secretary’s report had been published, which might be any moment now.

We hastened into the press gallery. The House was debating the Pensions Bill (Lords), but Mr Bercow was still in the Chair, which offered hope that he intended to preside later in the afternoon over Dr Fox’s resignation statement, which would be a major parliamentary occasion.

Gregg McClymont (Lab, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) was making his debut on the Opposition front bench. He leant lower than was necessary over the microphone, as if fearing that otherwise he would not be audible.

But Mr McClymont but was delivering a perfectly lucid attack on the Pensions Bill: “The Government is unfairly singling out women aged 57, 58 for harsher treatment.”

According to Mr McClymont, “support for the Government from women is falling off a cliff”. We can well believe this is true, having in recent days met women who are furious with David Cameron for the various put-downs he has made to women MPs in the Chamber.

At least Dr Fox is not a woman, or he too might have suffered one of these prime ministerial put-downs. But Dr Fox has nevertheless lost his job, so to succeed in Tory politics it is not sufficient to be a man.

The report was duly published, and the Conservative Party’s press office also put out a statement from Dr Fox, which began with the words “I am pleased”, from which we deduced that he was certainly not pleased.

But this press release was no substitute for the sight of Dr Fox in full sight of the Labour hounds who have pursued him ever since this affair began.

That is the trouble with field sports: you get days when nothing goes right and you see no sport of any description.